GUSTAVE-EUGÈNE CASTAN (1823-1892)
The Mont Blanc (4,808 m - 15,776.7 ft)
France, Italy border
France, Italy border
In Climbers ascending Mont Blanc via the Grands Mulets Glacier, Chamonix, France,
oil on paper laid on canvas (38 x 57cm) signed, circa 1885
Courtesy John Mitchell Gallery, London
Notice from the John Mitchell Gallery's catalogue :
Only a handful of glacier scenes exist by this classically trained Swiss painter, academician and printmaker. This fine study, made in oils on paper en plein air, is as fascinating as it is rare. Born in Geneva, Castan was a direct contemporary of Gabriel Loppé when they were both students of Alexandre Calame between 1844 and 1846. After an apprenticeship with Rodolphe Töpffer in Geneva, Castan travelled to Meiringen in the Bernese Oberland to study landscape with Calame. Castan’s friendship with Loppé lasted beyond those two summers and, in all likelihood, it was Loppé who took him up to the Grands Mulets to paint this scene. Having established himself as a regular participant at the Paris Salon between 1855 and 1882 Castan became a successful landscape painter inspired by Corot and Daubigny and is better known today for his views of the Normandy coastline. Indeed, there are no Salon records of any similar high Alpine scenes by him and this painting was surely done as a record of his expedition to the flanks of Mont Blanc. The spidery figures were perhaps a later addition by the painter even if their scale is in proportion to their surrounding glaciers and crevasses.
The painter
The Swiss lithographer, landscape painter and engraver Gustave- Eugène Castan was trained in the studio of Alexandre Calame, whom he accompanied in Italy in 1844, then, the following year, in the Bernese Oberland. During his studies, he became friends with the French painter Eugène Castelnau and followed him to Paris in 1849. In 1850, he visited France and met the painter Auguste Ravier and, in 1852, Corot, which has a decisive influence on him. In 1856, he was mobilized in the context of the Neuchâtel affair and drew current events. In 1857, he went to the Paris Salon, which he visited with Corot, then traveled through Brittany and Normandy. He then divides his life between Switzerland and France and often goes to the Berry where he becomes a familiar of George Sand. It is during one of these visits that she makes him discover the landscapes of the Creuse. He then goes there every year during the summer months and contributes to the birth of the "Valley of painters" and the Crozant school.
In 1865, Castan was a founding member of the Swiss Society of Painters and Sculptors, of which he was president in 1887.
The emperor Napoleon III bought his painting A morning autumn, making Castan definitely famous. He presented landscapes of Belgium, Normandy, Brittany, Dauphiné and Creuse. He also participated in the Vienna International Exhibition in 1873 and the Jubiläumsausstellung in Munich in 1888.
The mountain
Full Wandering Vertexes entry for Mont Blanc = >
2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau
